


Time Hung Balance

by DawnAraic



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: D/s, Elements of Power Exchange, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Smut, Time Travel, Zumzum, mentions of character death in the future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 13:06:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17345762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnAraic/pseuds/DawnAraic
Summary: Desperate, Agatha creates a chance to correct what she can, and save all that she loves.





	Time Hung Balance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ScribeProtra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribeProtra/gifts).



> So much has been happening, and I want to thank anyone who was really waiting for this fic for their patience! 
> 
> This is a one-shot, and has not been beta read. If you see a confusing typo, please just assume that I meant the most obvious thing. 
> 
> To be clear, the background is that fabric of time was unraveled by Lucrezia Mongfish and others, which brought the world to the full attention of the Dreen (and their Council), who would take the world and its inhabitants apart to restart.

Dimo felt the rope choking him, tight around his neck with bruising surety. It was coarse and rubbed his pelt the wrong way, but he could only relax. He could smell Agatha, and they were safe.

His vision blurred, and he hung limply, blinking at the scene before him of a sunny town square until his eyes came to rest on her blonde hair. He saw her smooth forehead and the soft fullness of youth in her cheeks.

It’d worked.

Agatha had said it would, and he never doubted it, but her spark-work had become increasingly arcane over the years, further and further removed from the general laws of science that even the maddest of sparks generally had to work with. The other generals had nodded, and only said how much she’d resembled such and such ancient relative, but Dimo was one of the younger jägers, made by Bludtharst, who had considered himself a thinkomancer, not a sorcerer. Magic became mad science before Dimo had even been fifty. He had never been personally there for the feats of the most sparky Heterodynes, so every impossible thing Agatha did was a new wonder to him.

But, he felt, even the oldest of them would agree her control over time had to be one of the greatest feats.

Agatha was staring back at him, the woman beside her having not yet noticed her distraction. Clear joy radiated from her, and Dimo could only smile helplessly back.

She’d done it.

She’d beaten even the Dreen at their game.

They were firmly and irrevocably in the past.

“Hey, brodder, vy are hyu smilink like dot? She’s gonna to be here soon, und de bear von’t be happy. Do hyu tink dot vill be fon?”

“It’s gonna to be a party,” Dimo said.

* * *

The core of her theory was built of guesswork. So much even her time-weary mother had known about temporal mechanics was wrong. Add in the extra-dimensional non-existent aspects, necessary to exclude the Dreen and their council, to completely and comprehensively re-set the universe across all of time and space, as well as in all the refractions of the world, and Agatha had no faith in her own work on that scale. 

But so many of her people, of her friends, of her family, had died. So much of the world was in ruin, and the very planes of reality were pulling apart.

It hadn’t even been a choice in the end, with Violetta’s blood still staining her sleeves.

* * *

Awareness that it had worked came to Agatha slowly, and there wasn’t an exact moment she could say that she was suddenly there, back memories and consciousness in her own body, decades in the past. 

She quelled the rising terror she’d finally become her mother, murdering her own self, taking over her body and place as her mother had tried to. Not for the first time, she desperately wondered if her own body could truly be considered hers, but she pushed aside the notion as best she could, trying to remember the various arguments others had made to her until her anxiety ebbed, and she was able to focus.

She knew where she was, and it had been the best case scenario remaining since she’d discovered Theo had died.

Her array had required a minimum of two people to be transported. Herself, as the principle, and another, to anchor her in the past, at the moment of their first true connection.

The meaning of connection had been fuzzy, no matter how much Agatha had gone over her work. The best guess she’d had was that it meant the most important of meetings. With Theo, the hope had been they would return to the moment they discovered they were cousins, as family had meant so much to them both.

Then, after his death, the plan had been Violetta, who had agreed that everything had changed when Tarvek had transferred her loyalty.

Dimo had been the last resort. He was always meant to come, had promised to follow Agatha to end of time, but he’d been meant to be in a later position in the array, not her second. There was no defining moment of connection between them that Agatha could point to. When they had first met had only been one of a long list of possibilities, a number of which were far too late to save anything.

But then the last attack happened, and Agatha had put aside her fears, and grabbed Dimo into the center array, and had started the device without Higgs. They needed time, and Higgs would buy it for her. She still wasn’t sure if he’d made it back with them or not.

Either way, she knew she’d seem him, in some variation soon, and that was enough. For now, she had other vassals to worry about.

Blinking at the sight of the three hanging jägers, Agatha could only smile.

She nodded once at Dimo, a very slight tilt of her chin. They hadn’t planned for this, and Agatha needed a little bit of time to reconfigure her plans, meant for the time when she’d met Violetta in Castle Heterodyne, into something new.

The woman beside her spoke, steering Agatha to a tent. She remembered this now, her first outing as Madame Olga the fortune teller. Too bad it would be her only one this time around. She rather fancied she’d be good at it this time.

* * *

There was a break before dinner. From the original timeline, Agatha had a very clear memory of Zeetha explaining the finer points of a number of sex acts Agatha had never even dreamed possible during dinner. With various pieces of food standing for genitalia. This time, Agatha had known what to say to the first woman, who’d come in with the tea cozy issue, and had ended up doing a brisk trade that day, though her advice had tended more to sexual education, and less towards fortunes, which did amuse her. Even if it didn’t fully distract her from the knowledge that three of her jägers hung at the gallows.

Stepping out of the tent, showing out the last customer, Agatha couldn’t help but look towards Dimo, Oggie, and Maxim.

Her fingers twitched, and for a moment she considered the merits of cutting them down again. It wasn’t like they needed Zumzum in the grand scheme of things. She could cut down her jägers, and then burn the town to cinders, when the mob came at them. That would show the world what it would mean now to harm a jäger.

Agatha breathed in deeply and let it out, and pushing away the spark-madness.

A mob of peasants, no matter how small, was actually not something she needed now. The Baron spies would carry the news of a young new spark allied with jägers far too quickly. Best to let things parallel the original timeline a little here, as the outcome had been almost perfect.

The only change this time was that she felt Master Payne and Countess Marie would need to know what was coming.

“Excuse me, do you have a moment, Master Payne?” Agatha asked.

He turned, and Agatha fought back the smile on her lips. It was good to see him looking so well.

“I suppose I do. Is the fortune telling not your liking?”

“It’s fine. I need to talk to you somewhere more private, though,”

Eyebrows lifting, Payne motioned her to his wagon, and Countess Marie followed them.

Inside, Agatha took the cup of offered tea and took a moment to savor it.

“What is it? While our tea is excellent, I doubt that’s what brought you here, Ms. Clay,” the Countess said.

“Well, that’s probably as good an opening as any,” Agatha said with a sigh and placed the cup back on the saucer.

“I take it that Clay isn’t your name?”

Agatha nodded.

The countess hummed, and then took a candy from the plate.

“Even the people Wulfenbach sent looked for you by that name,” Payne said, cautiously. “Did you pull wool over their eyes too?”

“Yes, but Gil had an invested interest in using my adoptive name as well.”

“Oh?”

“I’m Agatha Heterodyne. Daughter of Bill Heterodyne and Lucrezia Mongfish, who was pregnant with me when she was kidnapped.”

Countess Marie dropped her teacup.

Master Payne, who had looked like he was struggling not to laugh, possibly thinking Agatha had been trying a bit of improvisational audience participation theater, stilled.

“You’re serious.”

“Yes. There is a reason I am heading to Mechanicsburg.”

“The jägers,” Countess Marie breathed.

Agatha smiled.

“Oh, no,” Master Payne said. “We’ll be lucky to escape with our lives once you cut them down. The mob that will form—”

“This town is lucky I’m letting them get away with this,” Agatha said, letting dissonance creep into her voice. It wasn’t the harmonics indicating a spark in the grip of madness, but something far more disquieting, that tended to reach deep into a person psyche.

Agatha watched the last trace of disbelief at her parentage and power vanish.

“Oh,” Master Payne said.

“Fortunately, I’m inclined to not draw any further attention. After the performance tonight, I will free the jägers to drive off a bear and its rider. I’ll leave town the next day.”

“That may be best,” the Countess said, and finally had the presence of mind to begin mopping up the tea from her broken teacup.

“Not that we mind your company, of course, but we are just a simple troop,” Master Payne added hastily, waving his hands to indicate the small confines of the wagon.

“I understand. And frankly, I will need to travel faster than you can. Time has become of the essence.”

Agatha felt like time being limited was probably the greatest lie she would tell for a very long time. They had all the time they needed now.

In the end, Master Payne and Countess Marie hardly had to do anything, and Agatha left their wagon feeling pleased. She’d even convinced them to consider taking a trip to England. It would be harder without Wooster’s influence to expedite things, but Marie had her connections, and Agatha preferred to try to keep some parts of the timeline as similar as she could, even though she rather thought she’d have blown all temporal similarities before the summer was out.

* * *

Agatha went to Zeetha next, who took one look at her and straightened, suddenly alarmed. 

“What changed?” Zeetha asked, regarding her with accessing eyes.

Agatha nodded and brought her hands up, to performance the traditional gesture of a zumil greeting the kolee after a long time.

“Agatha?” Zeetha sounded choked, and unsure.

“I’m from the future,” Agatha said, in accented Skiff.

In all the plans she formed, this had remained the same.

They were Kolee-dok-Zumil. Closer than lovers, a meeting of minds, and extensions of each other’s will. Agatha could no more keep this a secret from her than she could herself.

“Ashtara,” Zeetha said, and then swore several times more, before bouncing to her feet.

Agatha countered the blow that came at her, as well as the others that followed, as Zeetha tested her claim. The almost dance between them continued, and Agatha let her training take over.

One strike after another flowed between them, until suddenly they both stilled, poised and finished.

“So you are,” Zeetha said, looking at her with wonder. “Now tell me if I died a warrior’s death.”

Agatha nodded once, and burst into tears, as Zeetha gathered her up in her arms, and began to soothe away years of pain, just by her very presence.

* * *

Krosp found them, while Agatha was still sniffling, her eyes red. 

“Did the actor-boy break your heart?” he said, all smooth unconcern in his tone, while his tail twitched.

Her hands shook slightly, and she carefully sat on them, even as she wanted to seize him and dance around. It was so good to see him alive, even if it was strange to see him looking so young, almost still kittenish under his oversized coat. He hadn’t even fully grown into his paws!

Scowling, he looked at her, going so far as to sniff her face.

“It’s a little more than that,” she said, and with Zeetha’s hand steady on her back, she told him what had come past.

She kept the news light at first, told him that König, the leader of the bear army his father had promised them had come back too, along with Moloch. However, Krosp was no fool, and he pressed her for painful details about the Dreen’s assault, stopping before she got into the technicalities of why Robur Heterodyne’s machinations with time had not destroyed the universe, but why Klaus Wulfenbach and her mother’s mess would.

She started in with what was a very basic explanation of why the linear flow of time mattered, despite actions already having happened (an incidentally why the way she had transferred the memories and thus consciousness of herself, Dimo, Moloch, and König would escape the Dreen’s attention, and allow them a chance to avert the doom of the world.

When she started in the simplistic explanation of quantum mechanics, necessary to explain temporal causality, Krosp was suddenly pushing her towards the big top, claiming she would be late for her first play, asking if she remembered her lines.

To her surprise, Agatha actually found herself enjoying playing Lucrezia. The words that came to her weren’t entirely accurate to the scripts, and she felt like she was monologuing overly much for the supposed aunjanue of the play, but there was something incomparable to prowling around the stage and yelling melodramatically at her minions.

At the end of the first act, Marie was waiting for her, with Trish to help her into her next costume.

“I can’t believe that was your first time on stage,” Trish said, throwing the dress for the next act over Agatha’s head.

“It’s as if you were born to play the part,” the Countess added, irony heavy in her voice. “You really inhabited the role.”

Agatha snorted, and let Trish finish helping her into the costume, before Trish moved on to help Pix into the elaborate High Priestess costume.

“You did well,” the Countess said. “It’s a pity that you’ll be leaving us so soon. You really do have a unique understanding of her.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Agatha said.

“If it’s not to delicate a question— that is, we don’t just have Heterodyne shows because they’re popular. What I mean to say is… Oh, dear. This really is awkward to ask…”

“What happened to my parents?” Agatha said, taking pity on the Countess.

The Countess nodded, meeting her eyes in the mirror.

Agatha toyed with the fall of curls, thinking. Violetta had always been better with the long-range planning. The original plan had been to tell as much as the truth as seemed reasonable. Secrets, when the Smoke Knights were your enemy, had a way of coming out at the most inopportune moments. The various aspects of time travel and the Dreen, of course, were the best-kept secret, but Agatha could not appear to be ashamed about anything in her past, lest it be seen as a weakness.

Agatha let her hand fall from the hair, and took a powder brush.

“My mother’s minions took care of me until Uncle Barry found me when I was a toddler. Father and Mother had a disagreement. I ended up being raised by Punch and Judy.”

There was however something to be said for discretion.

“Are they…alive?” the Countess said, barely audible over the roar of the crowd.

Agatha only sighed, feeling the weight of what actually had happened to them settle over her. Dealing with what had become of her birth father had been difficult, and she did not want to go through it again.

She let the Countess take her silence as a negative.

“Oh.”

Agatha wanted to take back her words for a second. She knew how powerful the return of the Heterodyne boys was in popular culture, what it meant to the people, and the hope it brought. But she also knew the damage that mythos had brought once. Far better to begin with surgical strikes, and lessen the blow.

“I am their legacy,” Agatha said. “In a way, I shall be their return.”

* * *

The tent flap fell shut, and the sounds of revelry were suddenly dampened, far more than cloth normally would have muted noise. It was simple spark work, and Agatha took a moment to breathe. 

She’d forgotten that Othar had cornered her after the play.

How much else had she forgotten? This was over twenty years into her past. Over half a lifetime ago.

She methodically lit the candles, making Othar wait as she tried to put her thoughts together and recall everything she could about Othar, from before he developed the knack of slipping in and out of dimensions as the Dreen’s destruction followed him for daring to escape their grasp in the time stopped Mechanicsburg.

For a moment, all she could see was his body and Tarvek’s, torn beyond all hopes of revivification, for all that a few individual organs still worked, in jittered spasms, time and dismemberment not quite caught up to them.

Agatha lit the last few candles even more slowly, and then turned to Othar, and let herself look at him, and take in just how alive he was. Maybe, if she stared at him long enough, she would forget what his lungs had looked like, still contracting and expanding, two feet past his arms.

“You look well,” Othar said and scratched at his beard. “In fact, you look like you’ve finally accepted your destiny.”

Agatha blinked at him, baffled.

“I thought this would take more time, but I guess the call of adventure is strong in you!”

“Do you mean,” Agatha said slowly, the faint hints of memory rising in her, “that you still want me as your sidekick?”

“Of course you can come with me! I only wanted to make sure you had enough time to search your soul and find the meaning of your life! Young DuMedd explained everything to me. I’m sure it was quite the shock to realize that you’d been lied to all your life, but now that you seem comfortable with it, you can join me as my spunky girl assistant!”

Agatha stared at him, trying to formulate words.

Othar’s pleased look slowly morphed into confusion at her silence.

Outside, the screaming began.

“Oh, thank the blue fire,” Agatha breathed in relief, and dashed out of the tent, into the chaos of Jenka’s one jäger and bear assault on Zumzum.

The various small tweaks her clanks had made to the circus wagons had clearly already begun. It wasn’t anything as dramatic as what she’d done by Sturmhalten. Merely little things that could be taken as luck, like a fire barely scorching the curtains of one wagon or the way another suddenly shifted three feet from where it had been, neatly avoiding Füst. There was just enough luck and avoidance that Agatha felt safe in trusting that none of the circus’s people would be harmed.

And if any of the people of Zumzum were…

Well, Agatha was a great deal less forgiving than she had been at eighteen.

People dove out of her way as she rushed across the square. Agatha, well used to this behavior in the future, ignored them, glad that her skirt was split, allowing full range of movement.

At last, she saw the scaffolding and the three figures hung wreathed smoke.

The jäger faces looked down at, her, the back of Oggie’s eyes glinting red in low light. Their grins were full of teeth.

“Problems, Mistress?” Dimo asked.

Agatha paused in getting out her knife to stare at him, her face softening in wonder.

“I forgot that you said that,” she breathed, stepping closer to him.

“I always knew what you are to me,” Dimo said.

Agatha took rested a hand on his thigh and took a moment to breathe. She had him, and they had time. There was a chance to fix it all.

She dragged herself back to present, and looked to Maxim and then to Oggie.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked, and let the harmonics of the spark seep into her voice

“Ve knew vho hyu vere,” Maxim said. “As soon as ve could smell hyu.”

“Deedn’t know about de time travel until he mentioned it though,” Oggie added.

Dimo shrugged slightly at her glance. “They’re my brodders. Hy know ve deedn’t talk about it…”

“It’s fine, love,” Agatha said. “I’ve already told Krosp and Zeetha. Can you talk to Jenka tonight? I need a political take on this, and she’s the best we’ll get for the moment, without Violetta.”

Dimo grunted his assent, as Agatha cut down Maxim and then Oggie with a toss of her knife.

For a long moment, she considered Dimo, hanging there, and wondered at the fun they could have had with this position, at another time. His crotch was at just at the level her chin, and they’d played plenty of suspension games before.

“You make such a pretty picture like this,” she said to him, voice low and throaty, and watched in amusement as his pupils dilated. Clearly, the possibilities hadn’t even occurred to him.

“Mistress,” he said.

Amusing herself further, she trailed her fingers up his thigh, and then swept her hand inward, resting her thumb just a hair away from his cock.

Dimo whimpered.

For a moment, Agatha considered it, rubbing her thumb in circles against Dimo’s pants. Her blood was running high already, and they’d fucked in the middle of battle plenty of times, stealing what moments they could as the world burned down around them.

Still. This was hardly a true battle, and for all her anger at the town, it would be better if it was mostly left intact.

She flicked out her second knife and tossed it at the rope, and then let it fall back into her hand pommel first as Dimo landed in a crouch at her feet.

Drawing him up with a hand under his chin, she brought his lips to hers. Kissing him deeply to the wolf-whistles of Oggie and Maxim, she cut the ropes binding his wrists and then gave him the knife.

“Meet me tomorrow, once the circus is far enough out of town.”

“Hy vish it vas tonight,” Dimo said, frustrated.

“I bet,” Agatha said, and slipped a hand between them, patting him through his pants. “Don’t take care of this. I’ll handle it then.”

Maxim’s guffaw was cut short by Dimo’s swipe.

“Uf course, Mistress.”

Agatha sighed, truly wishing they had longer. “Now go. Get Jenka out of here before I forget why I’m not burning this town down beside her.”

Dimo leaned into the hand she still held to his cheek, his eyes studying her, and nodded, stepping back.

“Ve hunt,” he told his brothers.

Agatha watched them, and wrapped her arms around herself, wishing she was following. But Dimo’s tastes were well known to both Oggie and Maxim, and she knew they would be watching him for any signs of a drop, if she’d pushed him a little too quickly there. Both of them probably had heightened atypical neurochemical levels right now.

“Well, I think we have a little more to talk about,” Zeetha said, and she peeled out of the shadows.

“I think we talked about most of it before” Agatha admitted easily.

A high pitched yowl as the jägers engaged rose from in front of them, though the smoke was too thick for Agatha to make out any details.

“Oh, really?” Zeetha asked.

“Our holy days are fun,” Agatha said, shimming slightly. “You and I presided over the Long Night Feast, about eight years from now.”

Zeetha looked at her, eyes suddenly liquid.

Many years ago, Agatha remembered a night with Zeetha and a lot of wine. It had been just after they had started to realize just how much they could lose to the Dreen, but before they knew their world was condemned. In the dark, sharing sips straight from the bottle of hundred-year-old wine from the Heterodyne cellars, Zeetha had told her just how close she’d been to thinking she’d made it all up. Olga had helped prop it up, as had Zeetha’s own unique knowledge and style of fighting, but Agatha, who’d heard of her world, no matter how little, who’d saved her. Taking Agatha on as a zumil had been a reckless act, that should have been saved for another, someone who would have passed all the scared tests. To do it just after meeting was something out of Skiff legends or tales. But Zeetha had done it because Agatha had been the first sign she’d had that the home she remembered had been real.

“I go back?” Zeetha asked.

“We visit often,” Agatha said. “We use the Queen’s Mirror. You decided to give up the throne to look for a true heir, and your brother ruled as regent.”

For a time. Skifander had been lost far earlier than it should have been, due to treachery from the priestesses.

Zeetha breathed slowly, the rhythm of a calming meditation, as she absorbed the news.

Agatha let her, knowing how much it meant. The smoke was starting to clear and she wondered if perhaps she’d taken a little to much time to let loose the jägers. She didn’t think Zumzum had been this burned before. Well, as long as no one was dead, she okay with the extra damage.

* * *

Dimo finished the incredible abbreviated telling to Jenka. 

“Ve lost,” she repeated, slumping further down against Füst.

Across the fire, both Maxim and Oggie were looking at Dimo, tense and unhappy.

“Yas. Not entirely, Agatha vas able to give us dot moch, bot yeah. Ve losht.”

Jenka shook her head.

Dimo wished he could tell her something more, but couldn’t. He’d softened it as much as he could but they needed to know. Too much was at stake here to joke.

Jenka took a deep breath. “Our task vas to find a Heterodyne. This ve haff done.”

“Und she has orders for us,” Dimo added. “Ve had a plan, bot it needs to change more. She vants to meet vit us tomorrow.”

Jenka chewed on her lip. “Hy vould prefer to hear vot de generals hef to say about diz,” she said slowly.

Dimo winced. He’d really have preferred to have not said anything about this so soon. It would have been so nice to only be responsible for Agatha’s happiness.

“Dimo?” Jenka said, half to her feet in surprise, leaning towards him.

“Hy em a General now.”

“Voah! Ve hef a fancy shmot guy here!” Oggie crowed.

“A General,” Jenka repeated.

Dimo looked away, shrugging. “We needed vun. Und de Mistress likes it ven Hy use my brains.”

Jenka’s mouth formed a perfect O, her eyebrows arched and delighted.

“She _vants_ hyu to use dem?” Maxim asked.

“How…close are hyu, exactly?” Jenka said. She’d relaxed back into Füst, but now she looking at with a deeper concern.

“Ve hef been lovers for nearly fifteen years,” Dimo said, not really wanting to go further into the details. Not wanting to tell her how close they’d come to a child.

“A long time,” Maxim said, trying to lead him into more.

Dimo shifted and briefly considered running back to Zumzum. Agatha probably had a wagon or a tent, and even if she was sharing with Zeetha or something, that surely would be less awkward than this gossiping, though he could hardly fault his siblings' curiosity. Plenty of Heterodynes had fucked jägers, with Gkika often teaching them the finer points of pleasure. Euphrosynia’s orgies still were whispered about in awed glee.

But the Heterodyne did not fall in love with jägerkin.

“She’s slept vit odders,” he said finally. He really didn’t want to talk of the possibilities they had lost, when Agatha’s labs had been destroyed when Castle Heterodyne fell. Far better to distract the others with something else, anything else.

“She called hyu love,” Maxim said. “Und she had no sheme in it either.”

“No sheme at all! Hy like dot!” Oggie said.

“How often deed _she take hyu along_ ven she slept vit odders?” Jenka asked, knowing.

Dimo’s silence was easily read, as was his flush, and he let them take as a reason to tease him further.

“Hy like her very moch,” Oggie said, laughing.

“Takes after her modder den,” Jenka said.

“ _No_.”

Dimo hadn’t realized he was on his feet, halfway to Jenka’s throat until Füst growled low at him. He only tucked the knife Agatha had given him into his belt when Jenka eyed it sardonically.

“Calm, brodder. Hy deed not mean anyting by dot, odder dan dot she has a vivacious sexual appetite, vich her father deed not.”

“Never repeat dot she iz like _her_ ,” Dimo growled and bared his teeth further. “Lucrezia Mongfish vas de Other, und her actions, both direct und indirect, are vot led to de Dreen’s Council takink full notice uf us.”

He stared down the others until he saw all of them had acknowledged his order. With a curse, he sat down and sketched the broad outlines of everything Lucrezia had already done and the greatest of the atrocities she would commit later. His hatred of Lucrezia burned, fueled by everything she had done to Agatha, and all the hurt she’d caused. He would spare Agatha what pain he could, and tell them everything they wanted to know about Lucrezia.

A silence fell over them after he relayed what had become of Bill and Barry.

“A General. Hy can see it now,” Jenka said, stirring up the fire, the dancing shadows confusing the expression on her face.

“I can even talk all polite and civilized-like now,” Dimo said, carefully, even as he was glad of something to distract the others.

“My good sir,” Jenka said in kind, hand going to her throat, playacting at the demur and surprised maiden. She snorted, and then dropped the hand, sprawling back. “Dot vill come in use later, Hy tink.”

“It has,” Dimo admitted. “Bot Agatha vill vant me vit her, before hyu tink op somevere to shtation me, spymishtress.”

“Like dot, iz it?” Maxim said, eyes sharp under his hat.

Dimo shrugged. “Hy vill alvays go vere she asks, bot Hy know my place vill alvays be at her side.”

* * *

Morning in Zumzum was clear and bright, with the majority of the inhabitants hungover from the celebrations of the great rout of the fearsome monsters, except for perhaps the mayor, who was surveying the burned remains of the town hall with bleary eyes and the unsteady gait of someone who had yet to stop drinking.

Outside the gate, Agatha was wobbling for another reason.

“You’re wasting so much less breath on complaining!” Zeetha said cheerfully.

Agatha bent double, trying to convince her legs to keep holding upright, and could only glare.

“But you still have a long way to go!” Zeetha said, coming at her.

Agatha tried to dodge the punch, but only succeeding in lurching slightly. Years of muscle memory had been lost, and even if she could plan her next move, her follow-through left something to be desired, let alone her automatic reactions.

She could only feebly fend off Zeetha, who flitted around her, calling out her weak spots. Agatha tried not to grind her teeth, and made a valiant attempt to hit Zeetha instead.

It didn’t work.

“Training means nothing, if you can’t back up,” Zeetha said. The phrase was more melodic in Skiff, a sing-song training phrase, meant for children.

Agatha wished for a death ray, just a tiny one.

Time stretched out, though Agatha knew it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes, as Zeetha continued to rough lesson, and Agatha endured.

“You’re doing well,” Zeetha offered, letting Agatha lean on her slightly as they stumbled back towards the circus camp.

“Second time,” Agatha panted in Skiff. “I know how to be a zumil now.”

“You’re doing well, regardless. Better attitude.”

“Older, more experience,” Agatha grunted.

“I should start you on the Quata'aras soon, I think,” Zeetha said.

Agatha huffed out a breath. “Still not falling for that. Not ready yet. Body.”

Zeetha snorted, sounding pleased, and took a little more of Agatha’s weight, as she towed her to breakfast.

Agatha set upon the meal with a will, as Zeetha ate at a more leisurely pace while instructing Krosp in the basics of Skiff grammar. He’d insisted on learning the instant he realized how hard it would be to eavesdrop on them if he didn’t know the language. Agatha, well used to her lack of privacy, had only smiled as Zeetha had taken to it, several years of suppressed Skiff burbling out to Krosp’s keen ear. Agatha expected he’d be conversational before they reached Mechanicsburg, which could be useful.

After her third helping, Agatha finally could drag her attention away from the food and was able to watch the circus come to life around her, with a sense of nostalgia. She’d been with them such a short time, but she’d learned so much then, the world so bright in her post-breakthrough state.

She remembered late nights, learning how to drink, and early mornings learning how to run, and for the first time having freedom over her studies as she figured out how to work with her gift, even as Payne tried to keep her busy. Her eyes caught briefly on Lars, and even that made her smile.

She would never love him now, as she thought she might once, but he’d taught her how to fall in love, and how fleeting it could be. That had been a rough lesson to learn, and she was glad he’d not die again so she could learn it.

To come back this early, for all the new troubles it presented and plans it erased, was worth it for that.

Idly, she tracked Lars across the camp, as he went to Abner, who began to look alarmed. Intrigued, she watched Abner go to Master Payne, who looked worried. When Payne exchanged a significant glance with his wife, who motioned to the intricately decorated baggage wagon, Agatha began to have an inkling of what happened. She watched Payne shoe away Abner and tried not to look too obviously unsurprised when the Countess came to get her.

Around them, the circus people were looking from the ornate wagon to Agatha with unease.

“Agatha, can we have a word? Something has come up,” the Countess said.

Agatha nodded, and put her plate to the side, though she did pause to grab her last sausage to munch along the way. Krosp and Zeetha broke off the language lesson and followed her over to Payne.

“I’m sorry to interrupt breakfast,” Payne said.

“It’s fine, I needed to talk to you anyway,” Agatha said, waving off the concern.

“Yes, you wanted to leave today, I believe?”

Agatha nodded.

“I’m going with her,” Zeetha added.

“I thought as much,” Marie sighed. “We’ll miss you as well, but…”

“We all must part ways at some point. I’m glad that we say our farewells on good terms,” Payne said. “However, there’s something that I believe you need to see before you leave.”

On the short walk to Moxana’s wagon, Payne sketched out roughly what Moxana was, and why the sudden appearance of her Tarot deck was so momentous.

Agatha let him and tried not let it show much it worried her. She had not considered what Moxana would do. Underestimating her, indeed underestimating any of the Muses, was a dangerous mistake.

“I’ll see what she has to show me,” Agatha said, knowing she sounded a little too distant.

They crowded inside the stuffy wagon, and Agatha examined the cards as Payne brought up the light up.

There were two.

The Ruin and the Hourglass. A painfully obvious meaning.

“Yes,” Agatha said, her throat suddenly tight.

Moxana’s metal lids blinked once, and her hands swept the cards away and cut them back into the dark, and she drew another card and placed it upon the table.

The card flipped over to show a clockwork world, flanked by the Milky Way.

“The Device,” Agatha said.

Moxana dealt another card on top.

It was identical. Seven more times she added The Device to the pile and then fanned the card slightly, to show the nine copies.

Payne was silent behind Agatha. More amazingly, so were Krosp and Zeetha.

Moxana dealt two final cards. The Crown she placed over the nine cards she dealt. And then she dealt The Scythe off to the side, both a threat and a hope.

Agatha sighed and tried to think, wishing Dimo was beside her, so she could at least try to get a second opinion. She wouldn’t be the best at predicting Tarvek anymore. But he was the best Storm King candidate she could hope for, and that plot was far too advanced to stop, according to Violetta.

And, if she played her own cards right, she could get Violetta back.

Decided, Agatha sighed.

“When you go to Balen’s Gap-”

“We don’t plan to,” Countess Marie said.

Agatha blinked, confused by the change. They’d gone through Balen’s Gap before. What had changed?

“You can’t go through Passholdt,” Agatha said and liedthat her jägers warned her of what was there, even as a new idea began to form in her head.

“I see,” Master Payne, looking troubled.

“But I think I can get you through Balen’s Gap, though there will be a loss. Moxana wants to join her sister there.”

“How did you know?” Payne asked looking at the cards, frowning

“Queen’s Tarot, dear. Don’t look too closely,” the Countess said, with a calm that hid her worry.

Hurriedly, Payne averted his eyes, as did Agatha.

The Queen’s Tarot had been easier for her to understand since her second breakthrough, but Marie was right to worry, as it did have a tendency to drive people towards explosion or madness.

“Furthermore, you should take her with a message. You are to tell the young Prince, Aaronev Tarvek. Tarvek, mind you. The son, not the father Aaronev Wilhelm. Tell him to come to Mechanicsburg, within a month. Tell him about me, and tell him that I won’t stand for a puppet Heterodyne girl, nor a puppet king. He must come to help me, and I will help him to his throne. Furthermore, he is not to tell my mother’s pet spiders, nor his family. He’ll understand.”

“That sounds…political,” Payne said, adjusting his spectacles. 

“It is.”

“I don’t like politics. It has the nasty habit of killing people.”

“I know, but I have to ask it. As a Heterodyne,” Agatha said. She hated to use it like that, but that would mean something to him. “Oh, and ask him to pay you, for your troubles. He will. Moxana won’t let him forget.”

Payne eyed her dubiously.

Moxana whirled. Somehow, she’d cleared the table silently. Unto this blank stale of wood, she placed a new card face up.

The Machine.

“Overcoming obstacles,” the Countess said.

“Lack of direction,” Payne said. 

Agatha stated at the card, and let it draw her in.

“Self-determination,” she said, pulling together meanings carefully, even as she still stared at the card.

“I see,” Payne said. “Are you set on this then?” he asked Moxana.

The Muse nodded once, sharp and swift.

“Repeat the message?” the Countess requested of Agatha and she did so, and drew a few more tips from memory, such as advising them not to mention they were a Heterodyne traveling show, lest they have a command performance of Socket Wench of Prague.

“We’ll also need supplies,” Agatha added. “I truly hate to ask it of you, but the Baba Yaga. Can I borrow it? And maybe buy some food?” She didn’t have much coin, but there had been some tips from the day before during her fortune telling sessions.

Payne made a low, unhappy sound.

“It is only the Baba Yaga,” Countess Marie said.

“Yes, but…”

“It’ll break in three days without me there at this point,” Agatha said. “All I have to do is wait for it. But I’m in a rush, and I hardly think it would be kind to essentially steal it.”

“But she will, if she has too,” Krosp said, finally back on firm ground in threatening people, having largely kept out of the earlier mysticism.

Agatha didn’t gainsay his claim.

After a little more bargaining, through sheer will and veiled threats, Agatha agreed to a rather high rental fee to be paid once the circus arrived in Mechanicsburg, and hinted heavily that they could go to England with that much money. Nearly all the money she and Zeetha pooled between them went into buying provisions.

The bargain struck, she shook hands with Payne, and the group left Moxana’s wagon.

Agatha took the chance to steal one last glance at The Machine card, still lying face up on the table. Other meanings slid through her mind, and she shoved them aside until she could hear the faintest echo of Albia’s voice, whispering _victory_ to her.

* * *

She’d looked at the card a little too long, Agatha eventually decided, as she slowly blinked herself back into awareness, the glow around the little clank in her hand fading. 

“Ugh,”

“Are you back with us?” Krosp asked.

“Yeah. It was the cards,” Agatha said, shaking her head to clear the last of the cobwebs. She examined the myriad scratches on her arm. Krosp’s reaction to her fugue state after seeing the Queen’s Tarot was comfortingly familiar, though she’d never encourage his tendency to use her as a scratching post.

“That was dangerous,” Zeetha said, her voice cracking out like a whip.

Agatha started guiltily.

“You know, I was actually worried about what this whole future stuff meant for us, as kolee-dok-zumil. Clearly, you will always need a kolee.”

“I’ll always need you, Zeetha,” Agatha said, hoping the deep sincerity of the statement might blunt a bit of Zeetha’s planned revenge.

Zeetha looked up from sharpening her Quata'ara, deeply unimpressed.

“And me!” Krosp added. “You’ll always need me. I’m your king!”

“Yes, yes,” Agatha said soothingly, barely restraining herself from petting him. He was prickly about that sometimes at the moment if she recalled. Which was a great pity, as holding him was usually a great comfort after a brush with deeper aspects of the Albia’s cards.

The Baba Yaga was moving slowly, still warming up, the sun had only barely moved from where she thought it should be. She hadn’t lost much time then.

“We said your goodbyes for you,” Zeetha explained. “We weren’t sure if it was spark thing or something else, and we thought that jäger, the one who you said came back with you-“

“Dimo. His name is Dimo. He’s the green one,” Agatha said firmly, making sure Zeetha and Krosp both had the name.

“We thought Dimo might have a better idea of how to deal with you before Taki threw a pie in your face.”

Agatha shrugged. “You had it about right, honestly. About the only other thing is to have Moloch record what I’m doing. Some of the leaps of logic I make are hard to retrace otherwise.” So saying, Agatha picked up the little clank she’d made, and prodded at it until it glowed a faint blue again.

“He’s at Castle Heterodyne, right?” Krosp asked.

“Yes,” Agatha said. “Probably deeply unhappy. He was rather hoping it would be later when he and the Castle had more of an accord, but he should be fine until we get there.”

“And how are we getting there?” Krosp asked, looking annoyed. “Are those creatures from Passholdt real, or did you just want the circus to take the scenic route?”

“Oh, they’re real enough,” Agatha said with a sigh. “We’re almost to the forest, though. Hold that thought until the others are here. Dimo’s fought the things before. He'll probably be able to tell you what you want to know. And I’ll need your expertise on this too.”

Krosp’s whiskers flicked in pleasure.

A few minutes later, under the canopy of the forest, Agatha heard the cry of a Mechanicsburg snail-pecker. She responded in kind and brought the Baba Yaga to a stop. Füst’s shadow emerged first, with Jenka on his back, and the other three following behind.

Dimo’s eyes met hers, and she saw him take in her state, with a slight twist of his lips, his eyes narrowing.

She shrugged at his look, rolled her eyes to the sky.

His eyes narrowed further.

Agatha sighed. They’d be discussing this later, she could tell.

Jenka had watched their byplay and nodded when Agatha looked to her. Her nostrils flared as she took in a deep sniff. She let out, looking pleased. 

“Zo, Mistress. Hy hear ve need to go Mechanicsburg.”

“Yes. We need to go home,” Agatha said. A warm glow kindled in her, to say that. Mechanicsburg was _there_ to go home to.

“Und dere iz horde uf slaverink mindless monshter tings betveen us und dere?” Jenka said.

“They’re confined by the mountains and the river." Agatha said, waving her airily. "Once we take out the bridge and thin them out, it shouldn’t be much of an issue. The Empire ended up having to deal with them next summer, when they went over the mountains.”

“Dot sounds fon!” Oggie said cheerfully.

“They’re nashty, bot not tough,” Dimo pot in. “As long as ve either hef a position to hold or dey don’t mob us, ve should be fine.”

“Really?” asked Krosp, sounding dubious, and then he was off, citing battles and similar ambushes.

Agatha let them hash out the plan. The creatures had some cunning, and extraordinary senses, but they wouldn’t last. They wouldn’t be fast enough for the people of Passholdt, though. She remembered now, feeling so desperate on the bridge, wanting to scream as no one would follow her, to avenge or save the town. Later, she’d read the reports of the creatures, written by the Wulfenbach forces who’d dealt with creatures the next summer, when the creatures had made trouble further west.

They were some long ago spark’s creation, that had slumbered under the town until construction had breached their secluded cavern. They’d taken the town quickly. With a fast life cycle, new creatures born within weeks, allowing them to overpopulate the valley rapidly over the winter, before dropping into a suspended hibernation, which was how the creatures had lasted through the years in their empty cavern beneath Passholt. The report to Gil had ended with a musing conclusion that they might have even been some ancient Heterodyne creation, meant to ravage the lands east of the mountains, for the creature’s had difficulties crossing even the lower passes.

Agatha had no trouble believing such a thing of her ancestors. She’d have done same if she felt was it necessary. That fundamental discernment of obligation, versus “we just thought it would be fun” was what set her apart from her forebears, she felt. Her parents had given her bloodlines, possibilities, and a grand legacy and birthright. It was Adam and Lillith who’d taught her duty.

The amount of planning that was actually needed for what really was just going to be one long fight was slim, and in the end, Agatha spent the rest of the day sitting on the driver’s seat of the Baba Yaga, tinkering with the half dozen death rays that all agreed would be prudent to have. In between, she answered questions from Krosp about the future, as Jenka listened in. Occasionally, Jenka would demand further explanations for her and Dimo. Agatha regurgitated what she could, only shielding Jenka from the worst it, from the last three years, when their losses had mounted exponentially.

“Enough,” Zeetha finally said, a few hours after lunch. “I think we all need a break.”

Jenka nodded, still looking troubled before Krosp came down from the seat beside Agatha to talk further with her. At least they kept there voices low.

Zeetha’s mouth thinned.

“Let them,” Agatha said. “It’s their nature. And Krosp enjoys this type of thing, the wretched beast he is.”

“I like winning,” Krosp yowled back.

Agatha rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t fight her smile.

* * *

They’d be weeks early to Mechanicsburg, Dimo guessed. Possibly, even two months or more ahead of schedule, if they made good time. They’d be at the bridge by mid-day. It wouldn’t be long after that when they reach Passholdt. If they were lucky the next day, they might be done with the fighting by the time night fell. Zeetha’s early halt was only prudent.

Oggie started making noises about hunting, and Dimo joined him, knowing what he really wanted to do. They’re jolly banter faded as they let the camp and headed towards the bridge at a lope.

“It’s not dot Hy don’t trusht hyu, brodder,” Oggie, said, apologetically, “bot…”

“Hy know. Und it vas years ago. Ve might hef forgotten someting.”

Dimo didn’t think so though. While they were coming to the bridge at least a week or so early, as the circus had meandered among the towns, he remembered the battle clear enough, the worry that they could lose their unproven and new Heterodyne so easily.

The bridge remained much the same as it had, and Dimo watched Oggie peer across it, into the shadowy lands across. Neither of them suggested crossing it. Oggie took several deep breathes, when the wind shifted to blow from the across the ravine, and frowned. “I don’t smell anything. Not any animals. It’s…odd. It could be we’re just too far though.”

“Possible,” Dimo said, keepink hiz voice low as vell. “Shtill, besht not to risk anyting further.”

Oggie nodded, still looking unsettled.

Dimo took the little clank out of his pocket.

“Vot iz dot?” Oggie asked.

“One uf Agatha’s,” he said. “Hy picked op earlier.”

Agatha had clearly been just fiddling when she’d made this one. It didn’t conform to any of the typical designs she used, but Dimo had seen similar ones before. It wasn’t one of the little generals of her clanks, but it’s abilities were doubtless well beyond the usual.

“Watch,” he commanded, and set it loose.

It dinged once at him, a soft and muffled chime and before it scurried away silently to disappear to the underside of the bridge, the last sign of it one brief burst of glowing. It was probably weakening it already. In under an hour, it would probably be able to take out the bridge itself.

Dimo relaxed, already feeling looser. They’d set a watch, of course, but it would be much easier for him to sleep now.

They made good time back to camp and even found a yearling buck. It was a scrawny thing, but it would taste well enough stewed overnight in the pot.

They’d set up two tents on the little rise they’d picked out for their campsite that night, and had a fire going. Food was simple, cheese, bread, and some apples that were starting go mushy, but they had a bitter coffee to go around, as well as honeycombs that Füst had brought back.

Dimo ate his fill, and lay back, eyes hooded. He’d never doubted that Agatha could find a way, but he worried if they’d have enough time, and then, as their plan coalesced, he worried if they would have enough to make it work. Violetta’s death, which still seemed unreal, for all he’d seen her wet blood staining Agatha’s clothes as she worked feverishly on the last adjustments to the machine. And he hadn’t even known how much he’d missed Oggie and Maxim until they’d slotted back in.

“Hey.”

Dimo blinked up at Agatha, and then came out of his slouch. She looked good. Better than she had in years.

“Hope iz a goot look for hyu,” he said.

“And the twenty fewer years, I’m sure,” Agatha said.

“Und Hy vill love hyu ven hyu’re a hundred,” Dimo said. “Hyu jusht hef less curves now.”

“And less muscle,” Agatha said, with true regret. “But, Zeetha did give me the night off.”

Dimo looked at her, and caught the way her hip was cocked, and how a lazy grin was spreading across her face, even as her eyes narrowed. “Ho. Und vot vould de Mistress like to do on her night off?”

Her eyes swept over him, from his boots to his hat. “Everything,” she said frankly. “But I’ll settle for what we can manage before I fall over. I’m afraid it’s been a long day.”

“Tomorrow’s not gonna be bettah,” he warned. “Lots uf fightink. Ve’ll hef odder nights.”

Agatha snorted. “I’ve had plans for our first night together here for a long time. As it is, all have them have been ruined, as we aren’t in Mechanicsburg. For now, I’ll settle for whatever we can take. Into my wagon. Now.”

Dimo scrambled to his feet, and made his way to her wagon, even as Maxim started up another song.

The old softie was singing a love song. Or was mocking him, but as Dimo was the one who would be sleeping in the nice warm bed tonight, he was inclined to be generous.

“It’s really not ideal,” Agatha said, shutting the wagon behind him. “Zeetha’s probably going to critique us tomorrow.”

“She von’t be de only vun,” Dimo snorted. “Bot Hy vouldn’t trade dot.”

“It’s still not what you deserve,” Agatha said. “We don’t even have toys!”

“Do you need one?” Dimo asked slyly, lifting his chin in challenge. This was a gamble, as he could also see her deciding that they did need one, and he’d lose half the evening in helping her build something.

“No,” Agatha said, and ran the tip of a fingernail down his throat, tracing the outline of a vein.

Dimo tried to stand still even as he was so hypersensitized to the touch that it felt like his lady was splitting him open with a finger, to see what she could find. He swayed slightly, starting towards her when the hand withdrew.

“Ah-ah,” Agatha said, took a step back.

Dimo lowered his eyes in apology and then snuck a glance back at her to see the fond smile as she darted in to pull him down into a deep kiss. As her tongue crept deeper into his mouth, he surrendered all control of the kiss, and let her take all she wanted. His only task now was to hold still and not accidentally bite her. Which was harder than it sounded when Agatha’s free hand snuck between them to brush a nipple.

At that, he was forced to let out a slight whimper, a warning to Agatha he was nearing his limit.

She withdrew, nipped at his lip, and stood in the circle of his arms, breathing slow contentment.

Finally, she pushed him away. “Shirt off. Now.”

“Zo demundink,” he said, and let his coat fall to the floor, and took off his hat, placing it carefully on the dresser bolted to wagon’s walls.

“Hurry!” Agatha said, her hands already pulling it up from his torso.

He laughed, brought it over his head, and tossed it away.

From the loud cries of mirth outside, he guessed it had gone out the window.

Agatha’s soft catch of breath brought his attention crashing back to her. He waited, still under her hands, as she ran them across his shoulders, and then down his arms.

“Hy never minded,” he told her. “Und de arm hyu gave me vas verra nize.”

“I don’t think I’d ever seen your shirt off when you had both,” Agatha said, her voice thick.

“Same as de odder vun. No clavs, keend uf borink,” Dimo offered.

Agatha shook her head and pushed him back to the bed, forcing him to perch on the edge of it as she ran her hands over his arms. She looked him over, as closely as she would any specimen she found changed, clearly cataloging the differences in the arms.

Dimo watched her until time started to slip away, leaving only Agatha. At last, she pulled back with a little hum and took in the rest of him.

“All of it now,” she told him, her hands already undoing belt. He toed off his boots, and together they divested him of his trousers and undergarments.

“Your cock is different too,” she told him.

“It haz never felt your touch before,” he told her and wrangled an eyebrow.

“Romantic, but no,” Agatha said, and cupped his head so he could see it better.

“Huh.”

She was right. He’d forgotten, but the pale bone white keratin bumps that had marched down his cock in regular rows of decreasing size were only lumps still fully covered by his skin now.

“Dimo?”

“Hy tink it changed ven hyu vere in de Queen’s Mirror for two years.”

“Interesting. We’ll have to track this. Extensively.” Agatha stroked his cock once, and then whispered, hot in his ear, “Exhaustively.”

Dimo shuddered, and nodded, as Agatha continued to slowly fondle him.

“Please,” he said, finally breaking when she brushed against his balls.

Agatha sighed and didn’t stop stroke him, though she looked to his face again.

“Please,” he repeated. “Hy need. Hy can’t…”

“I want this to last,” Agatha said and brought away her hand.

“Let me do someting for hyu,” Dimo begged, knowing that if she touched his cock anytime soon, it would all be over.

Agatha hummed and brought his face to her chest. As she thought, Dimo nuzzled at her décolletage and neck, trying to find if her hot spots were still the same. Going by the sudden intake of breath as he very lightly grazed the junction of her left shoulder and neck, they were. He worked at the spot for a while, laving at it softly, until she moved his head downwards, to just above where her heart beat and pulled him more tightly to her. Obeying the unspoken command, he nipped and sucked at the point, until Agatha was astride his lap, skirts flaring around them.

“Lay down,” Agatha said.

Taking the moment to show off, he found the leverage to lift her off him, and smoothly hold her as he brought his legs up, while he scooted back to pillows at the headboard.

Agatha let him settle her down, her knees bracketing his waist and smoothed her skirts over his bare body.

“Zo prim und proper,” Dimo teased, hoping she’d take the bait.

She smiled at him, and flicked his nose, testing to see if they were on the same page, as always.

He grinned up at her and stretched his arms until they were back behind his head, making sure to show the muscles in his biceps to their best advantage.

“Keep them there,” Agatha said and bounced off the bed.

Dimo twisted his head to watch, though he was careful not to move his arms.

Agatha shimmied out of her bloomers and skirt, though she didn’t bother removing her bodice or the long undershirt. Dimo worried at his lip for a second, noticing how little muscle she had now. Zeetha would fix it, he was sure, but in the meantime, he’d need to make sure she had multiple death rays.

Agatha sat back on the edge of the bed and simply looked at him, before running her hand across his shoulder, where his arm had been cut off. Then, she went to his side, where he’d taken nick that had barely scarred, the night he’d told her he loved her. After that, her pattern became apparent, as she traced all the scars he’d once taken, and probably would never have now, in service to her.

He held himself still until she finished, hands locked behind his head.

“You’ve done so much me,” Agatha said. “You’ve been so strong for me.”

“Hy vill do anyting for hyu,” Dimo said.

“I know, love,” Agatha said, and kissed him again, quick and hot, but barely there before she was pulling back, pulling his hands into hers, and tugging him up into a sitting position, as she eeled behind him to lay against the pillows. She spread her legs, her cunt shining in the candlelight. “Make me wet.”

Eagerly, he crawled up towards her, nipped at her inner thighs until she dragged his head more towards her center. Then, he laved at her clit, pressing his tongue down onto it until her hips started to jerk, and then he changed the pressure, trying to time it her rhythm. Her first orgasm was quick, and Dimo rode the crest of it, softly kissing at her mons pubis, until her hand found the back of his head and pulled him more tightly to her body.

Agatha, usually quite vocal in what she wanted, was oddly silent. Her hands directed him, and together they chased each of Agatha’s orgasm until they were dripping with sweat, and Agatha looked at him, with soft eyes, pupils blown wide with pleasure.

“On your back,” she said.

Dimo obeyed, his cock jutting into the air, leaking with faintly luminous precum.

Agatha took a moment and then clambered over him until she was again astride him, though this time, she took his cock with her hand, to guide into her. She sank onto it with a sigh, while Dimo quivered under her, wishing briefly that they had made some toys after all. If she’d bound him, he could have thrust all he pleased, but he knew this mood, and Agatha wanted all his bonds to be made of his own will, molded by her desires. He whimpered, and let her ride him, as he tried to hold still under her, even as the pressure built.

“Hy could help,” Dimo said and risked a slight thrust.

“But you already did so much,” Agatha said, bringing her hands down across his pelvis, to stop the motion.

Dimo groaned and brought a hand up to pinch at his nipple, holding it until the pain was distracting enough.

Agatha smiled down beatifically at him and picked up the pace.

“Now,” she breathed, and clawed at his shoulders as he sat up, and tried to find leverage to fuck into her at last.

Her nails scrapped down his back, and he came.

She rode his softening cocking through her last orgasm and lay draped over him, not bothering to pull off.

“Hy don’t tink Hy’ve anodder round in me tonight, not onless hyu hef someting to help,” Dimo told her apologetically.

“I know,” she said and didn’t move from him. “I just want to stay like this.”

“Vot, until mornink?”

“Maybe,” she said, laughing. “But no, I want this moment to last. Not forever. Just for longer.”

Dimo combed his hand through her hair, working through the snarls they’d made in it.

Agatha rolled off of him after he’d braided her untangled hair, and tidied wagon, putting away her bloomers and skirts, and hanging up Dimo’s coat properly. She even went as far as to step outside, as she was still mostly dressed, and get his shirt back, stealing the moment to talk to talk with Zeetha briefly.

Dimo fluffed the pillows for her, and helped her out of the last of her clothes, and blew out the lantern, before slipping still naked into bed with her. They took moment, shifting, until they found a good position, Agatha’s head resting on his shoulder, and Dimo’s arm wrapped around her.

Outside, the low hum of their company's conversation faded, as they clearly wound down for the night as well.

Agatha’s breathing steadied, but neither of them slept, and Dimo found himself playing with her hand, interlacing his fingers with hers, and then switching to rubbing her knuckles with the pad of his thumb.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Hy’ve jusht realized…”

Agatha made a hum of inquiry, turning her head to look at him more fully, her face finally looking more like it should in the shadowy light, more like the gloriously strong woman she’d become.

Dimo brought his free hand up to cup her cheek, which she took with both hands, holding it in place.

“Ve’re gonna _vin_ ,” he said with wonder.

“I know. Isn’t it great?” Agatha’s grin was sharp and sure.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of headcanons and tidbits that didn't make it into the text. If you want to know more, just ask! Please. 
> 
> Comments are loved.


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